You’ve got to hand it to Epic Games: the developer doesn’t let anything rest for all that long. When weekly challenges first hit the Fortnite: Battle Royale battle pass with Season 3, they were a simple affair, mostly oriented around using weapons and getting eliminations. There were, however, a few non-combat challenges every week that asked players to find a treasure or visit a list of locations: fun little diversions from the essential gameplay that quickly became a breeding ground for some of the most interesting interaction in the game: many is the dance party I’ve had on treasure sites that devolved into pickaxe fights moments later. Yesterday, however, Fortnite showed off how far it’s come with one of its best-designed challenges yet.
See how to solve these challenges here.
The music challenges are pretty straightforward: it’s a four-stage challenge in two parts. The first stage asks you to find sheet music, the second asks you to play it on a piano, the third and fourth ask you to do the same in a different location. It’s not quite as high-flying as other challenges that have you jumping through flaming hoops or blasting targets, but in some ways that’s what I like about it.
Here’s what works so well about the music challenges: for one thing, it’s naturally stretched out. I don’t really like the challenges that require you perform actions in different matches because it feels like an artificial roadblock. That mechanic is technically in place here, but it doesn’t feel nearly so onerous because of the relative complexity of what you’re asked to do. This is essentially an adaptation of the treasure map challenges, which asked you to find a map and then find a treasure. Most people, however, just googled it and went right for the treasure. This is a way to encourage the multi-stage quality of that challenge that doesn’t feel forced.
Just as important is the challenge itself. It’s fun! It requires you to actually do something in the game instead of other challenges that just require you visit locations. And it’s something that has absolutely nothing to do with combat, which is key to these challenges, both because it gives less-skilled and younger players something to do and because it reinforces Fortnite as not just a death arena but as a wacky, shifting world full of odd secrets. You have to play a giant piano! It’s brilliant.
To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t mind if Epic got rid of combat challenges entirely in favor of non-combat challenges. The thing is, the main game gives you plenty of opportunities to mess around with shooting people because that’s sort of the whole point. The challenges are what allow Epic to take a fairly rigid game model and expand it in strange new directions. I’m excited to see what’s up next.
